Category Archives: Physics
I think, I think.
A bit more than three years ago I began this blog intending to write about matters of existence and consciousness (and science and computing). Since then, I’ve tried on other hats, stories from my past and present, opinions and views about society, even the occasional post above movies or TV. But those meatier topics — the ones the blog is named for — still attract me.
There are three problems, though. Firstly, other sites specialize in that sort of thing and do it very well. Secondly, they aren’t topics that attract visitors — my meaty posts get even fewer reads than my less weighty posts. And thirdly, I may not be as good as explaining things as I would like to be.
That said, sometimes I just can’t help myself, so here we go again.
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16 Comments | tags: choice, consciousness, debate, determinism, deterministic, free will, mind, physical determinism, quantum effects, reality, universe | posted in Physics
The maps you find in some buildings and malls have a little marker flag that says, “You are here!” The marker connects the physical reality of where you are standing at that moment with a specific point on a little flat map.
Your GPS device provides your current location in terms of longitude and latitude. Those numbers link your physical location with a specific point on any globe or map of the Earth.
But to fully represent our location, longitude and latitude are not quite enough. (We might be high overhead in a hot air balloon!) To fully represent our position, we need a little more ‘tude, but in this case that’s altitude, not attitude.
We need three (and only three) coordinates to completely represent our location in space. This post is about why.
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18 Comments | tags: 2D, 3D, 4D, 5D, altitude, Calabi-Yau, Cartesian, coordinates, dimensions, latitude, longitude, polar coordinates, rectangular coordinates | posted in Basics, Math, Physics, Science
It seems fitting to take this opportunity to write a Sideband post the way I had originally intended when I began them. That intent goes back to the beginning; the first Sideband post was my second post here. For better or worse, the original intent didn’t last long.
In fact, it’s hard to see much difference between the Sideband posts and the other posts. That probably reflects a lack of focus on the main topics. Sidebands were intended for stuff that was off topic. But I’ve been so all over the map on topic that at least one blogger asked if I had a short attention span. [insert here one of the short attention span jokes you’ve heard before]
That’s not going to change. I’m eclectic; so is my blog. Sidebands will evolve. For now, here’s a Sideband on yesterday’s post, just like Blogger originally intended.
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5 Comments | tags: chaos, chaos theory, fractals, Mandelbrot | posted in Math, Physics, Sideband
Okay, any Star Trek fan knows that Gene Roddenberry invented the transporters so he wouldn’t have to deal with the special effects necessary to show a landing every time the crew visited a planet. It also cut out any time needed to show the launch, travel time or landing, and that moves the story along. Both of those are smart and good, so let me start by saying, “Gene, that was awesome! And so is the horse you rode in on!”
There’s also the simple fact that, in science fiction, you have to grant a few “gimmes” in order to tell the story you want.
The canonical example here is warp drive. Do you want to explore strange new worlds, and seek out new life and new civilizations? Well, you’re gonna have to find a way around Mr. Einstein, who laid down the Universal Speed Limit, a little thing we like to call c.
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7 Comments | tags: Dyson sphere, Earl Gray, it's green, Picard, Realm of Fear, Relics, replicators, Scotty, Spock Must Die!, Star Trek, transporters | posted in Physics, Rant, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
I’m torn over today’s topic. I’m tired (for the moment) of nattering about work (got some thanks, but no thanks messages today, and that makes me disinclined to discuss the distress; nepenthe beckons, I’ll answer the call, now 94 bottles of beer on the wall).
And I’ve spent some time in the blogsphere, which is endlessly fascinating, but time-consuming and a bit draining. After reading about the struggles of others, mine own seem pale and pointless.
So it’s time for something light and refreshing. I realized I haven’t bored anyone with science recently, so, as the good The Doctor would say, “Run!”
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Leave a comment | tags: CERN, Einstein, neutrinos, OPERA, particles, quarks | posted in Physics, Writing
I was trying to keep up with the physics4me feed when I came across an article that made me sad: Higgs boson signals fade at Large Hadron Collider. It’s not unexpected, but for a while there the news was pretty exciting. It seemed like maybe we’d finally found the Higgs.
That I felt sad made me realize hope much I was hoping for a Higgs. A Higgs Contact.
I said a while ago that I wanted Alien Contact. Of course, that does have the potential to go badly for us… but it might not. It would be one of those life is never the same again major events. Not that plenty of major events haven’t happened in our various lifetimes. We’ve walked on the moon, knocked down the Berlin wall and invented reality TV (and the iPhone).
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Leave a comment | tags: higgs boson, quantum physics | posted in Physics, Science
My recent post about how the Big Bang and “Let there be Light” seem equally fantastic to me triggered an interesting comment from a reader. A detailed response requires more elbow room than a comment allows, so here’s a follow-up article instead.
One of the points involved that our scientific ideas, no matter how inaccurate they may turn out to be, are at least based on evidence. And to the credit of science, when we recognize errors in our interpretation of the evidence, science changes to accommodate the new interpretation.
This has been, as I mentioned in that post, hugely successful. One of the failures of our spiritual metaphysics is that it clings to frameworks defined thousands of years ago and often stubbornly refuses to accommodate new information.
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7 Comments | tags: atheism, big bang, brain mind problem, Gandhi, Kurt Gödel, Lee Smolin, Max Planck, quantum physics, Roger Penrose, Sheldon Glashow, spacetime, spirituality, String theory, theism, Theory of Consciousness, Yin and Yang | posted in Philosophy, Physics, Religion, Science
Last time, I wrote about irony and the perverse universe. This time I want to write about something just as fundamental. It has the technical name, entropy, and there is a very technical definition that goes along with that name.
I’ll return to that later, but for now consider this simple truth: If you have a barrel of fine wine, and you add a teaspoon of sewage, now you have a barrel of sewage. On the other hand, if you have a barrel of sewage, and you add a teaspoon of wine, you do not have a barrel of wine.
You still have a barrel of sewage!
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30 Comments | tags: entropy, perfection, spaghetti sauce, stew, thermodynamics, wine | posted in Basics, Life, Physics
Logos con carne 